Violations of Protocol
by lunarock9
Summary: "My healthcare protocol has been violated. I regret any distress I may have caused." Tadashi survives the fire, but not without consequences. Callaghan takes advantage, Hiro mourns, and Abigail slumbers, but nothing is as it seems.
1. Part I: Let the Flames Begin

"My healthcare protocol has been violated. I regret any distress I may have caused."

Tadashi survives the fire, but not without consequences. Callaghan takes advantage, Hiro mourns, and Abigail slumbers, but nothing is as it seems.

…

Part I: Let the Flames Begin

Flames roared loud above the cries of the desperate escapees of the blaze. Hissing, spitting, crackling, the fire drowned out the otherwise guilt-inducing sounds, and with it any possibility of remorse in Robert Callaghan's pain-seared heart. This was only necessary, he reminded himself, gritting his teeth. Klaxons blared and blinked, but the vengeful professor was undeterred, forging through the destruction.

Had he been in any state near to stability, he might have questioned the extremity of his actions. As it was, he was nowhere near any such thing, that clipped exchange with Krei having rekindled a festering rage he'd thought long gone. Oh, he'd tried to move on, seeking therapy and counsel in the months after Abigail's death, but empty words and sympathetic looks only went so far. He'd let the initial blistering fury die down, cutting off contact with that blasted company, and found himself with a hole, a blankness where there should've been emotion. Callaghan had been sinking for a while, and hadn't done anything to stop it, deciding it was better than the murderous mania that he hated to admit had scared him in the beginning.

But no longer. Krei's appearance, though fleeting and ineffectual, had reignited that burning passion, and Hiro Hamada's microbots were all too convenient. It had been, by all means, a spontaneous and undoubtedly risky plan, but Callaghan had lost all too much to care anymore.

Barreling through the exhibits and displays, most having been trampled as presenters and observers alike fled the inferno, the professor headed toward the presentation that had so utterly stolen the show earlier that evening. He just needed the neurocranial transmitter, and then he could make his escape, the key part to his revenge plot secured. Triumphantly seizing the device, he slipped it over his head, ready to command the microbots.

"Professor! Professor Callaghan!" A voice familiar to the professor's ear called, searching.

Callaghan's eye widened. There was no reason for the other Hamada to be here. Had he suspected? What was he doing here?

No matter. There was no time to be lost, and especially with the imminent explosion. He'd set up a particularly explosive array of experiments in just the place to destroy remaining evidence. It would take out the building with it, and cover his escape. He called the microbots to him, summoning up a protective shell-

Tadashi Hamada rounded the corner, eyes wide and anxious. "Professor! Are you hurt? Hurry, we need to-"

A rumble cut off the student, as the burning building's very frame began to shake. Callaghan eyed a beam above his favorite pupil's head in concern. The boy had come for what? To save him? Clearly caring, but foolish- diving into danger without any knowledge of what he'd have to do or where to look to save his supposed victim- it would have been too late, anyway. Hamada's eyes were wide with wonder as he spotted the microbots. Blast, thought Callaghan, aware he'd now have to deal with a witness. He didn't know what there was to do, however, and with the building beginning to collapse, he was out of thinking time. A crack sounded, and the beam above Hamada's head began sliding. All too aware of the impending doom for both of them if he didn't act soon, Callaghan sighed.

He shot forward, forming a seething shell of microbots around him and the student, just as a explosion rocked the structure, and the beam descended. A surge of heat somehow breached the buffer formed by the bots, but it was too dark to clearly make out what was happening. Callaghan heard, just above the crash of the beam, a scream, but could not stop, focusing on the more important task: escaping the building.

In the vehicle provided by the microbots, Callaghan began to head home.

...

 **Author's Note: Hey y'all. Just doing some spring cleaning of my fanfiction inventory, I've had this one sitting around for about a year so I decided to actually try and write it. Lo and behold, it's actually working. I've got a plan all laid out and everything. This should be about six parts, and the next few parts will probably be a lot longer.**

 **I'm actually really excited for this fic, it was initially inspired by a Winter Soldier!AU fan comic I saw of BH6, and once I started plotting everything unraveled. I hope to finish this before school starts again. The title of the first chapter was inspired by the song by Paramore.**

 **Leave a review to tell me how it is, how you are, or how I am as an author!**


	2. I Can See For Miles

Part II: I Can See For Miles

Callaghan growled in frustration, sending another glare toward the limp form on the cot in the corner of the warehouse he'd found for them to lay low inside. Hamada hadn't made a sound since the explosion and that final scream. Though at first confused as to the reason for the gut-wrenching cry, the professor was dismayed to finally discover what was lost in that final blast.

He wasn't certain how, or why. But a large section of the transmitter he'd very clearly remembered wearing during the fire had found its way onto the student's head. He couldn't remove it from the student's skin, and though he wasn't sure how it had happened- maybe it had melted a little as a product of the heat- it was definitely stuck. Callaghan knew that it was impossible for it to have fused with Hamada's skin, so he speculated heat from the blast must have allowed it to warp, fitting the student's head too tightly to be removed. Either way, he was furious.

Initially, the professor hadn't even noticed, having full rule over the metallic army, which moved like a wave of ink, and no resistance from the slack body beside him. A few minutes after the blast, he lost all control of the beady black bots. He supposed this must have been when the transmitter cooled long enough for the technology to recognize a new brain, or maybe he'd finally lost functionality in his piece of the transmitter, but his moving shell of bots collapsed around them, leaving him fumbling in horror. Callaghan had grudgingly dragged the student into a car he'd managed to hotwire, muttering curses.

Since he'd realized the problem, his attitude toward the elder Hamada had darkened, not that the slumbering boy could tell. His plan delayed, the professor could do nothing but scowl while he attempted to assemble a new device. That was not coming along as well as it needed to.

Unable to retain the microbots after he lost control, he was stuck with the meager sixty-something he'd managed to fit in his pockets at the time, meaning he was down both a controller and a robot army. He'd put together a shabby assembly line in the once-abandoned factory, and was still waiting for the first batch of the things to finish. In the meantime he'd been struggling to replicate the transmitter to command them with, which was more difficult. The microbots he could scan, and disassemble to learn how they worked, but the transmitter- a technology that was both entirely new to him _and_ broken into pieces made unscannable due to their unfortunate position around Hamada's _skull_ \- was a different story.

Callaghan took another resigned look at the fruit of his labours and made a few more adjustments, hoping to get the right frequency for the brain waves to register. He slipped the circlet, more clumsily manufactured than its predecessor, down over his worry-creased forehead. He cast a glance toward the microbots, sitting idly on his desk, and willed them to stack themselves into a cube.

They skittered across the table, and his eyes widened as the shape took form, up until a strangled scream caught his attention in the corner of the factory. Tadashi Hamada sat, upright for the first time in days, and shrieked, an awful, piercing noise. He clawed at his head, casting desperate glances around the room until at last his eyes fell upon Callaghan standing near the microbots.

"Make it _stop_ ," he hissed, through clenched teeth.

"I don't know how," Callaghan told him, eyes flicking toward the bots, then back to the tortured student.

Frantic, searching, brown eyes fell on the metallic cube formed beside him, which promptly burst, the pieces skittering away from the table and into the corner opposite the student. The aging professor felt a jolt of dismay, as he realized his device had started to warm, and removed it immediately. He was just in time; the device began to heat in earnest, and smoldered on the table-top. Nearly groaning at the waste of effort _that_ endeavor had been, he quickly remembered the Hamada boy, who was encountering the safety measures Callaghan had put in place in the event of his consciousness.

The boy, tugging and cursing his restraints, looked up, locking gazes with Callaghan.

"Who are you? Why am I tied up like this? Let me go!"

Callaghan's eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"What? Do- You don't recognize me?"

Eyes the color of rain-washed earth lowered. "No."

The professor's fingers tapped rhythmically on the surface of his workbench. He could play this to his advantage, get Hamada working for him, and then he wouldn't need to make a new transmitter after all. It was clear he had some degree of control over the bots, and as of two minutes ago, Callaghan had lost his. He had to proceed carefully.

"I'm… your professor, Robert Callaghan. You've been helping me with a... project, and you were injured in an explosion. I didn't want you to aggravate your injuries, so I tied you down while I fixed you up," he stumbled through the explanation. "It looks like you may have hit your head a little too hard, but I'm sure everything will be fine. What do you remember?" The professor tried for a reassuring smile, stepping forward toward the student.

"I… don't remember anything," mumbled Hamada.

Callaghan sat down on a chair closer to the occupied cot. This was where the hard work began.

"Your name is Daniel. Daniel Radcliffe," he started, and then winced. Great. Now he had to prevent the student from accessing any computer or he'd get suspicious of his new name's matching an actor- except that act in itself would raise suspicion. Thinking further, he realized he could not let Hamada near any newspapers or he'd realize the whole world thought he was dead, and that he was not, in fact, who Callaghan said he was. Shifting uncomfortably, he realized how much easier it would have been just to let the blasted student die in that last explosion, but his gut churned at the thought.

"You were helping me reassemble an interdimensional portal from the project Silent Sparrow with microbots, which were those things you saw earlier. There was a fire, and you were injured after an explosion, and now the only controller is stuck to your head."

Raising his fingers to probe gently at his head, "Daniel" flinched as he came into contact with the transmitter.

"I was trying to manufacture a new one, but it appears using a new one might aggravate your injuries. I'm sorry, I didn't realize."

"Okay…" Hamada nodded slowly. He didn't sound completely certain, but Callaghan was at least a little relieved by his seeming acceptance of the information. "But… why am I tied down?"

Shoot. How was he going to explain that? "You have a tendency to be… excitable at times."

Brown eyes widened. "I- I'm not violent am I?"

"You don't mean to be," the professor lied, and felt immediately guilty as the student's gaze dropped to the floor in shame. "You're a good person, Daniel. You've been helping me. You've always been good at helping people," Callaghan told him, thinking of a fluffy white nurse-bot waiting in Hamada's lab at SFIT.

The professor began undoing the restraints and Tadashi made a motion like he was going to help him, but quickly stilled, as a little ebony ribbon of insect-like bots rushed to the scene instead. With both Callaghan and the bots, the work was done in an instant. Though free, the student sat motionless, mouth forming a perfect 'o'.

"Was that me?" His eyes were wide with wonder as he turned to look at the professor.

"It must have been," muttered Callaghan.

"Well, if you're feeling alright, we should get back to work. Don't want to waste daylight," announced the professor, helping the hesitant student off the cot.

"...Right. Work."

Turning away, Callaghan felt the beginnings of a smirk forming. His plan was finally back on track.

...

 **Title inspired by Johnny Nash but mostly The Who. Digital cookies and a shoutout if you can figure out exactly how many microbots Callaghan has. Leave a review!**


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